He told her what to fetch, and when she brought them it seemed to give him great pleasure to recall his friends to mind by name, and speak of them—­especially of Montagu and Wildney.

“I have a plan to please you, Eric,” said Mrs. Tremor.  “Shall I ask Montagu and Wildney here? we have plenty of room for them.”

“O, thank you,” he said, with the utmost eagerness.  “Thank you, dearest aunt.”  Then suddenly his countenance fell.  “Stop—­shall we?—­yes, yes, I am going to die soon, I know; let me see them before I die.”

The Trevors did not know that he was aware of the precarious tenure of his life, but they listened to him in silence, and did not contradict him; and Mrs. Trevor wrote to both the boys (whose directions Eric knew), telling them what had happened, and begging them, simply for his sake, to come and stay with her for a time.  She hinted clearly that it might be the last opportunity they would ever have of seeing him.

Wildney and Montagu accepted the invitation; and they arrived together at Fairholm on one of the early autumn evenings.  They both greeted Eric with the utmost affection; and he seemed never tired of pressing their hands, and looking at them again.  Yet every now and then a memory of sadness would pass over his face, like a dark ripple on the clear surface of a lake.

“Tell me, Monty,” he said one evening, “all about what happened after I left Roslyn.”

“Gladly, Eric; now that your name is cleared, there is—­”

“My name cleared!” said Eric, leaning forward eagerly.  “Did you say that?”

“Yes, Eric.  Didn’t you know, then, that the thief had been discovered?”

“No,” he murmured faintly, leaning back; “O thank God, thank God!  Do tell me all about it, Monty.”

“Well, Eric, I will tell you all from the beginning.  You may guess how utterly astonished we were in the morning, when we heard that you had run away.  Wildney here was the first to discover it, for he went early to your bed-room——­”

“Dear little Sunbeam,” interrupted Eric, resting his hand against Wildney’s cheek; but Wildney shook his fist at him when he heard the forbidden name.

“He found the door locked,” continued Montagu, “and called to you, but there came no answer; this made us suspect the truth, and we were certain, of it when some one caught sight of the pendent sheet.  The masters soon heard the report, and sent Carter to make inquiries, but they did not succeed in discovering anything definite about you.  Then, of course, everybody assumed as a certainty that you were guilty, and I fear that my bare assertion on the other side had little weight.”

Eric’s eyes glistened as he drank in his friend’s story.

“But, about a fortnight after, more money and several other articles disappeared from the studies, and all suspicion as to the perpetrator was baffled; only now the boys began to admit that, after all, they had been premature in condemning you.  It was a miserable time; for every one was full of distrust, and the more nervous boys were always afraid lest any one should on some slight grounds suspect them.  Still, things kept disappearing.